“Pretty Little Liars” recap (4.07): Uterus before Duderus

You guys, forgive me in advance. This recap is late and it’s going to be much shorter than usual. I’m moving across the country in a couple of days and I dislocated my shoulder over the weekend so typing for more than ten minutes at a time feels like GLASS IN MY HAIR and I don’t have adrenalized hyperreality to ease any of my physical pains or emotional anxieties! Mona, save me!

Previously on Pretty Little Liars, A planted a gun in the closet where Ashley Marin keeps her swamp shoes so Hanna obviously stole it and tried to cover it up with twigs and leaves and grass on the campus of Cicero College. Turns out the gun was the one that killed Wilden, and Ashley’s prints were all over the bullets, so off to prison she went. Emily paid the price of giving her face to a stranger in the woods, and that price was Red Coat wearing her face on a video waving around a sign labeled GUILTY! And Spencer got into trouble with Emily and Aria because Mona dimed her out as an accomplice in Toby’s mobile lair theft, which lead her to doing some sweet-ass time-travel to a place made of a whole other color than Rosewood.

Let me tell you something lesbians are awesome at doing: Passive-aggressive cleaning. It’s the perfect way to feel your angry feelings. OK, because, for starters, you’re doing something helpful. You’re working hard. Because you care. But you can use the chores to drive home your anger, by: a) Being hawkishly silent. b) Opening and shutting drawers and cabinets with just a liiiitle more forcefully than necessary. Not enough to be accused of slamming things around, but enough to punctuate your closemouthed fury. c) You can use the task to highlight how your girlfriend has done you dirty. For example: “Would you mind putting this mixing bowl on the top shelf. My shoulder is still busted because of how I was risking my life and my future happiness to rescue our friends from attempted murder while you were dicking us over by helping your boyfriend steal the one thing that could have made our lives a little less dangerous.”

At the tender age of 18, Emily Fields has already mastered this move, and Spencer is feeling her wrath as they clean up the Marin’s kitchen. Aria joins them to say Hanna still isn’t eating anything, and their next move is going to have to be cake frosting and a wooden spoon. Emily forgets her frustration with Spencer immediately because they are the Liars and Hanna is their Hanna and that’s the most important thing right now. They all hold hands because of true love.

(I ship Liars so hard, you guys. Their friendship is my most best ship of all ships.)

Upstairs, Caleb — who one time shot his own self in the gut with a gun on top of a lighthouse, and is headed to Ravenswood in like ten more minutes — tells Hanna over the phone that he’s never going to do anything stupid and that they’ll have all the time in the world to snuggle and sex it up after Ashley is cleared of her murder charges. Then he hangs up and Toby hands him a cup of coffee and they make out so fiercely my TV explodes. Just kidding, they’re only tag-teaming to solve the mystery of A, which is foolish in the extreme because if Mona couldn’t do it, they sure as crickets can’t do it, but they’re very beautiful standing together all intense and motivated by love. Would it be better if Paige was there? 1,000 times better, yes. Was I momentarily panicked that this show was going the mansplaining/prince charming route? Yes, also. I have got to learn to relax into these writers who have proven themselves beyond reproach a thousand million times already. It’s just so weird being treated respectfully as a gay woman by television.

Pam pops into Emily’s room early in the morning to tell her she’s set up an appointment for her to start getting shark piss injections into her shoulder because it can’t be any more harmful than the poison elixir A had her using that time, and it’s pretty safe to say she’s not getting a call from any Cicero sororities about scholarships. Emily offers to help pay with her coffee shop tips or even get a second job as a teenage handyman like Toby because he only works two days a months and makes one million dollars per hour. Pam says not to worry about it; they’re doing pretty OK with Wayne’s Army pension and her job as Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Rosewood Policery.